While designing new enemies for some other maps I'm working on I came up with some ideas for "Bosses". But since I don't actually like boss battles, I'm not going to use them in any of my other maps, so I figured I'd share them as a separate little thing. I think they're fun, and I had fun making them.

Each "boss" does require a specially designed arena for him to work properly. The arenas in the map I uploaded aren't perfect, but they do provide the opportunity for the boss battles to play out the way I intended them to about half the time (if you're not cheesing the monsters or using invincibility).

I do think there is a lot of potential in Lua based boss battles IE, splitting into smaller enemies, only takes damage from the back, teleporting, but physics based battles tend not to remind me of "bosses" since they tend to be taken down by conventional means. Will try yours.

The Trooper needs to have its flinch disabled. Hitting it with a stream of bullets keeps it too occupied to fire off its salvo of missiles. However, I did enjoy the spread pattern. The grenades go everywhere, then try and converge on your location which gives it a cool look. While not possible with Physics alone, I would prefer the grenades to converge on the player then have their homing disabled, so they don't come around and hit me in the back.

The Hunter was my least favorite. I understand what your are trying to do with the mine laying, but it felt cheap to run into a bunch of mines while trying to pay attention to the hunter's presence. The mine laying would be better combined with the cloaking mechanics of the enforcer.

The Enforcer's mechanics were very cool. Nice to see some shapes usage. Too bad the enemy can still block you while "teleporting".

I'm glad you liked the effect of the Trooper grenades. Having them lose their homing could be faked with Forge/Anvil. You could have them affected by gravity, so they hit the ground after passing the player, and/or, the arena could just be smaller so that after passing the player the grenades are more likely to detonate against a wall.

Visually, I like the Hunter's mine laying a lot. It looks impressive. The battle would probably feel less frustrating if the arena was designed differently. The behavior of all of these monsters would probably work a lot better if I spent a couple more weeks experimenting with different arenas.

I really like the way the Enforcer worked out as well. Unfortunately, I don't think you can alter the physics files so that he doesn't block the player without also making it so projectiles also just pass through him.